Scratch 3.0
Scratch 3.0 is the third and current major version of Scratch. It is a complete redesign and reimplementation of Scratch written in HTML5 and JavaScript. It features a new, modern look and design. It is compatible with many mobile devices and does not require Flash. It was released on January 2, 2019. New Features Blocks *Many blocks are in a different order *Events Blocks are the color of the Scratch 2.0 Control Blocks, and control blocks are a bit lighter than the old events blocks. *The blocks have been enlarged slightly for mobile users. *More Blocks has been renamed My Blocks, and is a shade of light red. *Some default inputs have been changed. Other *New Paint Editor and Sound Editor *Pen, Video Sensing, and Music blocks are now extensions *Projects can now be created on tablets and played on both tablets and phones *Several extra options for the “touching ()?” boolean, including “any edge”, “mouse-position”, and “left edge” *Different fonts: Sans Serif (thin Helvetica), Serif (Times), Handwriting, Marker, Curly, Pixel, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean *The vector paint editor is now the default editor *New extensions: Text to Speech, Translate, Micro:bit, and Lego Mindstorms EV3. *Internet Explorer is no longer supported *PicoBoard and LEGO WeDo 1.0 are no longer supported Updates On January 9, 2019, the Scratch Team released new updates for Scratch 3.0, fixing many bugs Scratchers had reported. They included projects getting stuck on the loading screen, and the love and favorites not showing up. This announcement was shown on the Front Page. In early-mid January 2019, the front page banner was changed from "The new Scratch is here!" to "Create stories, games, and animations" and "Share with others around the world". Below the banner, there are two buttons: "Start Creating", leading to the project editor, and "Join", leading to a page to create a Scratch account. On April 19, some more updates were rolled out. It included the Go Direct Force and Acceleration Extension and bug fixes. On August 1, updates to the sound editor were released. It made improvements to the sound editor, including the option to select portions of the sound, coping and pasting, all kinds of sound effects like 'echo' and 'robot', and keyboard shortcuts to the editor. Criticism and Controversy Scratch 3.0 has proven to be the most controversial and most criticized version of Scratch. Before and after its release, many users complained in the Scratch 3.0 Beta Forum about features in Scratch 3.0, including the block size and the stage being on the right of the editor. Some Scratchers requested to the Scratch Team that they stop developing 3.0 and keep 2.0. A sticky was later made in that forum mentioning that the Scratch Team will not stop 3.0, and that if 2.0 was kept, it would no longer work from 2020 (the year Adobe Flash, which Scratch 2.0 ran on, would go obsolete). As a result, shortly around the release of 3.0, many users, including some popular ones, and particularly animators, left Scratch. To raise awareness about this, a user named Optifict created the character Thanos Cat, as well as a studio called "Thanos Cat Snapped Half of Scratch From Existence!" whose icon quickly became popular. Thanos Cat are a metaphor for the exaggeration of how the release of Scratch 3.0 made many of Scratch's users leave. Some Scratchers have created an alternate trend in which they change their icons to say "Trust the ST!", a popular hashtag as of January 2019, and "Go 3.0!" rather than the negativity of 3.0 portrayed by Thanos Cat, dubbing themselves the "Scratch Avengers."